I was on a plane last week and I was sitting behind a mom traveling alone with two tiny kids. For the last half hour of the flight, the toddler was screaming her head off. Now, that’s not the interesting part. Toddlers scream on airplanes all the time, which is why most people bring along headphones (mine broke right before my trip… I’ll see you in hell, BIG HEADPHONE). The neat twist here is that the toddler screamed so hard that she ended up vomiting all over her mommy. I heard the mom go OH MY GOD and then the barf smell started wafting its way through the cabin.

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We landed and there was a delay on the ground because of course there was. They couldn’t find a jetway driver, and you could tell that the pilots and attendants desperately wanted off the plane as bad as everyone else because they would update us on the jetway status every five seconds. “Should be out shortly, everyone!” Finally, they opened the door and the mom stood up and I tell you, this lady was COVERED in barf. And I’m not talking neutral baby spit-up. This poor lady’s top had yellow chunks all over it. Everyone around offered help and let her and the kids get off first, a rare moment where people’s kindness and self-interest are in perfect harmony. The whole cabin reeked by the time they were gone.

So if you’re having a shit day, I promise you it’s probably not as worse as what that lady went through. Airplane parenting is the worst thing on Earth, but mix in barf and it’s a whole new dimension of suffering.

Time for your letters!

Brent:

Leaving out situations where you may have to get early or late lunch because of circumstance, what is the standard lunch time? My friend and I both work at jobs with no designated lunch hour and can therefore meet up whenever during the day. I say 11:30. More broadly, between 11 and noon. Anything later is too late and anything earlier is basically breakfast. He says never lunch before noon, EVER.

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I’m the worst person to ask because I work from home and I can rarely hold out past 11:30, which means I’m hungry again an hour later, when everyone else is now eating lunch. I’d love to wait until 1 or so, but there’s a bunch of leftover barbecued chicken wrapped in foil and sitting in the fridge that I’ve been daydreaming about since breakfast. I don’t have the willpower. Then I plow through the meal in five seconds, only to realize my next large meal isn’t for another six hours or so. It’s a rough moment.

Anyway, I think the standard lunch time is right in the 12:XX hour. After all, that IS midday. Perfectly acceptable lunchtime, except when you realize that’s also when everyone else decided to grab lunch and now the line at Chipotle stretches out longer than Star Wars premiere. That’s why the 11 a.m. no-man’s-land between breakfast and lunch exists, so you can grab your lunch then, before the lines get out of hand, then bring it back to the office with the intention of waiting a little bit to eat it, and then scrapping that plan instantly.

But do you know what it NOT acceptable? Late lunchers. You people who usually eat lunch after 2? Go fuck yourselves. I hate you. I don’t need your Gordon Gekko bullshit in my life, eating lunch close to dusk because you’re just soooooooo busy, surreptitiously shaming those of us who actually eat lunch on time, as if we lack resolve because we’d rather not wait a full lunar cycle between fucking meals. I think once 1 p.m. hits, they should pull all the lunch food as a way of punishing late lunchers. You people had your chance and you BLEW IT. No meatball sub for you.

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Michael:

What do you think was the most fun a band ever had during a recording session? I was listening to the Isley Brothers classic “Shout” and couldn’t help but imagine everyone jumping in on the fun, including the producer, the engineer... Hell, I bet even the janitor popped in to do a little shuffle.

Yeah but Axl Rose brought a woman into the studio for “Rocket Queen” and boned her on the mic. That sounds even more fun. According to this fine tome, they flew the girl from New York to L.A., stuck her in the control room with the harmonica player, let her strip in front of the harmonica player, and then just as the two of them were about to fuck, Axl tapped the guy on the shoulder and told him…

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Poor John Popper. Anyway, if you’re asking that question from a purer, more musical standpoint, “Shout” ain’t a bad way to go. They really DID record all the fun parts together in the booth, with the band’s friends there and everything. If they recorded that song today, everyone would record their parts from five separate studios on four separate continents. And there would be a TERRIBLE synth break at the end to ruin it.

Adam:

Would you rather have no knees or no ankles?

It’s gotta be ankles, right? If having no knees means I’m walking around with my legs stick-straight like I’m Frankenstein, that’s pretty brutal. I tried doing that just now and my wife caught me.

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HER: What are you doing? Are you ok?

ME: (immediately activates knees) I’m fine.

I also tried walking around with stiff ankles and it felt like I was on stilts. Not the worst feeling! Everyone loves a guy walking around on stilts, yes?

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Michael:

Recently while grocery shopping I decided to give these Mega Stuf Oreos a shot. I was not disappointed. The next day after trying for this first time, I witness my wife take a Mega Stuf Oreo, complain that it has too much cream filling, and wipe off approximate half of the original amount before eating the Oreo, smiling and saying see? Perfect! This is an absolute joke of an action. Please make me feel better and tell me she should seek counseling... or something.

She doesn’t need counseling, she just needs to get a box of regular Oreos and leave your Mega Stufs the hell alone. Each Mega Stuf is precious. It can’t be sullied by someone who doesn’t appreciate the sheer, unbridled GALL of stuffing a pound of sweetened industrial lard in between two brittle chocolate wafers. Those cookies are only for the bold.

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By the way, that’s a huge wife move. This Oreo would be better without so much filling. This cocktail is just a little too boozy. Honey, I love this steak but I cut off all the fat. It’s almost like women don’t want to die. RIDICULOUS. Do you know how many times I’ve eaten chicken skin off my wife’s plate on its way from the table to the sink? All of the times. I’m 80 percent chicken skin. Men have their issues, but they know damn well to enjoy the best parts of things.

Brian:

Do you think Alex Trebek would be any good at Jeopardy! as a contestant? You have to think that he would have absorbed quite a bit of knowledge by sheer osmosis over the years. I think he would smoke any and all comers.

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No way. Fuck that. Alex Trebek was a philosophy major, man. He doesn’t know jack shit. If he were such a smarty pants, don’t you think he would have been a stunt contestant on that show by now? They made the Chopped judges actually compete once. And Pat Sajak has been a contestant on both Wheel and Jeopardy. But do you see Trebek putting his rep on the line by grabbing a buzzer? No. No, you do not. His job is to project intellect, but not necessarily possess it. And I bet his producers are more than willing to keep the ruse going. The second Trebek botches a simple question, the whole house of cards comes down. His brand is sullied FOREVER. I bet his contract expressly forbids him from even entering into a dive bar trivia night.

You know what? I bet I would whip his ass. That’s right. I bet I would take Alex Trebek to the fucking cleaners if we ever dueled on Jeopardy (so long as there are no questions about opera, ballet, the bible, or any question about world history before the year 1980). I bet he doesn’t have the STEEL BALLS to take me on. Granted, he probably gets challenged to a smart-off all the time, and almost certainly never reads this site, but as far as I’m concerned, he is ducking me. TREBEK THE CHICKEN HIDES ONCE AGAIN.

Travis:

What is your opinion on reading for pleasure while stoned?

If you can concentrate on a book while you’re higher than a Swiss mountain climber, more power to you. In fact, sell me your pot. I’m a big fan of pot that gets you high but keeps you functional. I don’t wanna get stoned and then sit there like I just severed my spinal cord. I want to be productive. The lady in Colorado who sold me weed told me that Sativa was the DO STUFF pot. Or was that Indica? I got too stoned to remember which was which.

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The point is that reading while drunk, stoned, or both is a nice way to spend an evening. It makes me feel like a gentleman to lie in bed and read the oral history of Megadeth while drunk and shirtless. I should buy an olde-tyme pipe to complete the effect.

Brian:

What’s more...a shit-ton, a shit-load, or an ass-load? This has been heavily debated amongst my group of friends for years.

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A ton is more than a load, right? Like, if you tell me you’re ordering a shitload of Chinese Food, I’m expecting two or three bags, and enough lo mein to feed a party three times our current size. But if you ordered a shit-ton of it, then I’m expecting it to be delivered on a pallet, with a forklift pulling up my doorstep to lower the crates of shrimp toast down. I take the “ton” part of that literally. That’s probably why “shitload” and “assload” get used more often. Don’t tell me that you got a shit-ton of beer and then let me down by showing up with just a couple of cases. You better have ordered a keg of kegs. I want a keg that has smaller kegs coming out of the tap.

Kyle:

Do people just stop giving a shit about commitments as they get older, or is it more unique to the 21st century Snapchat, Tinder etc era? Our kickball league just ended and we had multiple people never show up, we never played a game with a full team, and in our playoff game, we were so shorthanded we had to play 7 v 11 (never have I had such a workout playing such an unathletic game). Understandably, it’s just a social league and not competitive or anything, and people get busy, but at a minimum, we paid $40 for this league, with the intent of having an excuse to get out, hang out with our friends, get exercise and meet others. Two of the people - who never came to a single game - paid upwards of $60! Just to not show up! Am I the unreasonable one for thinking that if you pay money and join a team with your friends you should be able to commit to just six games? Are people in general incapable of that now, or was my team especially apathetic?

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I think your team is probably an anomaly, especially if other teams in your league are sporting a full squad. Those white-collar kickball leagues are usually for horny single people with a shitload of time on their hands. If you had a bunch of middle-aged dipshits like me signing on, that should have instantly triggered alarm bells in your head. Older people are HUGE flakes. That’s not necessarily a byproduct of the Internet age. It’s just that you get older, and you get busier with family commitments, and then you’re so exhausted from those commitments that you de-commit to everything else.

Also, people get much more annoying as you get older. You get much pickier about who you hang out with, which is how you end up hanging out with no one. I’m not playing kickball with a bunch of glorified strangers. What if they’re jackasses? That’s more work than actual work. I bet the flakes in your league thought kickball sounded fun in theory before forking over the money and suddenly realizing what they just committed to. That happens a lot when you’re my age. Nowadays, if I gotta leave the house, there better be a free lobster in it for me. Otherwise, I’d rather just get drunk and read.

HALFTIME!

Sean:

Have we reached peak take? I feel like Ballghazi was probably the high water mark for sports scandals and it’s all downhill from here.

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Yeah once you elect a hot take artist as POTUS, you’ve pretty much expanded the Take Bubble to its outermost reaches. There’s nowhere else to go now that takes represent 90 percent of our operating GDP.

Frankly, my takedar has gone completely downhill in the past year or so. I can’t even tell anymore if something is a hot take, or an ironic version of a hot take, or an ironic response to that ironic version of that hot take. IT’S LIKE OPINIONS ON THE INTERNET MEAN NOTHING THESE DAYS. I’m completely taked out. I think the next hot trend will be anti-takes. Like, people will say they have an opinion about Colin Kaepernick and then just write out a recipe for broccoli soup instead. Very avant-garde shit.

There will always be news items that kick the First Take production offices into high gear, like if Roger Goodell eats a live baby or something. Stephen A. will be like I AM SO DISGUSTED while FS1 bros will be like THIS IS WHAT THE OWNERS PAY HIM FOR. But all this shit stopped feeling genuine a long time ago, and the internet is so divorced from life on the ground that it may as well be a goddamn Michael Bay flick. Everyone is so intractable now that society will basically be stuck in idle until the day the Earth blows up. That is my opinion on current events and if you disagree I will beat you senseless.

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Brian:

Will hot chocolate still be worthwhile if it’s cooled? Like, if I make the hot chocolate and then put it in the refrigerator, will it still be pleasant-tasting? I want to try it, but obviously feel foolish doing so.

[Mitch Hedberg voice on] Hot chocolate cannot get cold. It can only become chocolate milk.

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[Mitch Hedberg voice off] For real though, you’re not drinking that cold hot chocolate, especially if you made some shitty-ass Swiss Miss packet or something. You’re either reheating it or it’s going down the drain. Drinking it cold feels wrong.

Nate:

What the fuck is the point of watching the NBA if you don’t root for one of the 4 GLORY BOY teams? I’m a Utah Jazz fan living in Boston. It sucks more than The Ringer. All I hear about is how much Gordon Hayward misses his college coach and why would anyone choose to play in Utah when they had HISTORY and THE PARQUET at their disposal. Then, they turn around and act like they’re lunch-pail-toting-just-doing-my-blue-collar-job-in-my-blue-collar-shirt regular guys. That doesn’t compute. Anyways, why would anyone outside of Lakers/Celtics/Cavs/Warriors/Spurs/Heat/Bulls/76ers fans watch?

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Whoa hey slow down there on the Sixers bandwagon, amigo. Didn’t you see the No Hinkie Club sign taped to the front of this website? The Sixers are fucking dreadful, and I always find it amusing when fans of some horrific NBA team think stockpiling high draft picks year after year is gonna work out splendidly. Those Sixers fans should sit down and have a beer with a Bengal fan consulting group. I’ve never seen a bigger bunch of sports rubes. That team should stop investing in the draft and start investing in a goddamn training room.

But hey, that wasn’t your question now, was it? You’re concerned that the NBA has become so top heavy that only a handful of teams have a realistic shot at winning the title any given year. I’ve said this before, but if you’re a fan of a team strictly because you hope they win a title one day, you’re wasting your time. Unless you’re some Boston schmuck, sports are usually designed to disappoint you on that end. You have to be into the daily ritual of being a fan. You have to be into watching games drunk, and salivating over draft choices, and pissing and moaning when your team makes a stupid trade, and watching a promising young player develop and fooling yourself into believing that this time…this one goddamn time…maybe your team has a shot at joining that fractal tier of the league that hogs all the rings to itself. Then that young player breaks a foot and you’re buttfucked all over again.

Also, not to go all FreeDarko on you, but you can enjoy your local NBA team on a stylistic level. I mean, Oklahoma City wasn’t gonna win a title this year, but watching Russell Westbrook play all season with a comet tail sparkling out of his ass was still worth the price of admission, right? It’s no sin to enjoy sports for reasons that go beyond just winning and losing. I mean shit, aside from money, why do you think the athletes are out there to begin with? They just like the games for the games’ sake.

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Bill:

When did it become a thing for people to put their cars in park while sitting in the drive-thru? Are people just that paranoid/shitty at driving that they think their foot will slip off the brake and hit the guy in front of them? I’m more scared they’ll forget to shift the car all the way back to “Drive” and plow into me while in reverse. I mean, there can’t be a real, practical benefit to this, right? I’d imagine it’d be torture for your transmission to constantly shift, idle for five feet, park, repeat. Am I insane here?

No, you just don’t have kids. If I’m using the Wendy’s drive through, I’m putting the car in park while I wait so that I can get my money, wipe Goldfish bits off my children, yell at them to stop spitting on each other, pass out napkins, and hitch the dog to a coat hanger. I need a moment to prepare the car before that food comes through our window. What’s your rush anyway? It takes me .0003 seconds to shift back into Drive. Can you not wait that long? WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT US AS A SOCIETY THEN?

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For real though, shifting into park is a fine move. I even do it at long lights sometimes! Really makes the guy behind me sweat.

Nate:

I’m 30 and eat a lot of spicy food. Over time, will I be building up an immunity to hot food, or am I destroying my stomach lining and get ulcers by 35?

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By age 30, your stomach is your stomach. I think your palette can continue to evolve, so that you appreciate the nuances of Szechuan fire chili oil. But if you’re a fellow of the Nordic persuasion like me, that shit is still gonna eat through you and come out the other end smelling like old salad dressing. That’s biology. I strongly recommend you hop on the Metamucil bandwagon like I have. It won’t necessarily strengthen your tummy, but it’ll prevent a lot of road work along the digestive highway, if you catch my meaning.

I do think you can train kids to handle spicy food at a young age. I read once that breast milk often contains a tiny amount of flavor from whatever mommies happen to eat. So if your pregnant wife is into eating jars of sport peppers whole, that probably helps baby get ready for a world of barbecue hurt.

Alex:

What’s your definition of a millennial? In her Netflix special, Iliza Shlesinger referred to herself as a millennial even though she’s thirty-four. I’m twenty-four and I thought MY age group were the senior millennials because we can remember a childhood devoid of an omnipotent—and mobile—Internet. And because we all basically sent our first text messages at the same time a lot of our parents did. Surely if you can remember the Reagan era, you’re not a millennial, right? Such a person would have (almost) already been an adult by the new millennium.

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Technically, I think it’s anyone who was born at the turn of the century or come of age through it. Personally speaking, a millennial is anyone younger than me who gets on my fucking nerves. I don’t think of like, Dak Prescott as a millennial, because he seems cool. But Chris Brown? Fuck him sideways. He’s a big-time millennial in my book. I say we have a millennial travel ban.

Tony:

Will hockey uniforms ever change? While football players seem to wear the tightest uniforms possible and basketball has seen many changes over time, it seems hockey uniforms never change and the players wear pajamas. The baggy sweater jersey and padded shorts (wtf, just look at those things) - can companies come up with a more modern and equally as protective uniform.

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If they could have designed a sleeker hockey uniform by now, they would have. But the fact is that they’re playing a sport on a rock-hard frozen surface, which means players have no choice but to skate out there in winter layers, stockings, and a pair of exo-diapers. Unless they start playing hockey on trampolines, I don’t see that changing any time soon. I wonder if hockey players still wear garter belts. SO SEXY. If I were a grownup hockey bro, I’d wear that and nothing else during intercourse. The ladies would go WILD, I tell you. Kinda weird they made us wear them during Mite hockey. I say that’s too young to be dabbling in sports lingerie.

Email of the week!

Gabe:

I work at an unmarked, mostly secure (think fully fenced, keycard access only gate and door, massive backup generator, etc) remote corporate data center, in the middle of a field, near a small rural town. As per policy, we are required to wear full on business professional attire. That, plus our proximity to a nearby military base has led the locals to suspect that my coworkers and I work for some secret govt. organization.

Not wanting to disappoint, when they ask “What goes on in that building?” we usually answer vaguely with things like “We just ‘fix computers’ for ‘the company’ “ and leave it at that. Since most of the local eateries offer a military discount, when they ask specifically “Are you military?” at times I have responded with “I dunno, does the CIA count as military? Har har har!”, the cashier will usually throw me a pity laugh, and then take my order.

Now, it’s been awhile since I’ve employed the ‘CIA’ shtick, but this past week after ordering my lunch I noticed after the fact that they indeed gave me the military discount without asking! I started checking some other previous receipts from this and other establishments and yep, those ones as well. Somehow, my shtick was taken at face value around town and now I’m receiving an undeserved discount! I want to make things right, but is explaining myself going to somehow get the employees in hot water? And be honest, is this gray area of stolen valor gonna put me on a list somewhere?

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I assume it’ll get you a Cabinet post these days. HEY-OOOOOOOOOO!

For real though, tell them you’re not military or else a troop will parachute down and cave your face in.